The Year That Shaped the Victorian Age: Lives, Loves and Letters of 1845

by Michael Wheeler

Overview

What was special about 1845 and why does it deserve particular scrutiny? In his much-anticipated new book, one of the leading authorities on the Victorian age argues that this was the critical year in a decade which witnessed revolution on continental Europe, the threat of mass insurrection at home and radical developments in railway transport, communications, religion, literature and the arts. The effects of the new poor law now became visible in the workhouses; a potato blight started in Ireland, heralding the Great Famine; and the Church of England was rocked to its foundations by John Henry Newman's conversion to Roman Catholicism. What Victorian England became was moulded, says Michael Wheeler, in the crucible of 1845. Exploring pivotal correspondence, together with pamphlets, articles and cartoons, the author tells the riveting story of a seismic epoch through the lives, loves and letters of leading contemporaneous figures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009268851
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/22/2022
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.78(h) x 1.22(d)

About the Author

Michael Wheeler is a leading cultural and literary historian and presently a Visiting Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton. His many critically acclaimed books include the prize-winning Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology (1990), Ruskin's God (1999), The Old Enemies (2006) and St John and the Victorians (2011) – all published by Cambridge University Press – and, most recently, The Athenæum, published by Yale University Press in 2020.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Public Scandals: 1. Opening Mazzini's mail: Sir James Graham and the Post Office; 2. The railway juggernaut: Delane, Dickens and the press; 3. Poor law bastille: the Andover workhouse scandal; Part II. Private Lives: 4. Love by post: Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning; 5. Letters from the Continent: Ruskin in Italy; 6. Letters of the living and the dead: Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle; Part III. Oxford Movements: 7. Established church in crisis: William George Ward and the Oxford Movement; 8. A dangerous correspondence: Newman on the road to Rome; Part IV. Irish Questions: 9. Educating papist priests: Gladstone and the Maynooth grant; 10. From our own Commissioner: Daniel O'Connell and The Times; 11. A prime minister resigns: Peel and the Corn Laws; Afterword.

Editorial Reviews

‘This lively account shows how a single year came to epitomise so many of the overarching themes of the Victorian age. An inviting read even for those already familiar with the episodes depicted, this is a meticulous and thoroughly-researched tour de force of scholarship by an author who always has new things to say.’ Rohan McWilliam, Professor of Modern British History, Anglia Ruskin University

‘Remarkably informative, interesting, well-researched, and well-expressed, this study complements the many existing books on Victorian life and culture with both well- known and little-known material approached from a fresh point of view and supplemented in places by the use of hitherto unpublished documents.’ Rosemary Ashton, Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature, University College London

‘Wheeler is a fine cultural historian, and anyone who picks up this book will learn a great deal about the figures he has chosen … (his) study is careful and consistently interesting.’ Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Spectator

‘In this enthralling study, Wheeler argues that it was in 'the crucible of 1845' that Victorian England came to define itself … Reading Wheeler’s chapter on … John Henry Newman - so well does he tell the familiar story - it is as if we are hearing it for the first time.’ John Pridmore, Church Times

From the Publisher